The Suit

by Stanislaw Wygodzki

Translated by Nitsa Bar-Sela

(From the book W Kotlinie [In the Valley],
stories from the
Holocaust, Polish, Book and Science publication, Warsaw, 1949)

Stanislaw Wygodzki, a Polish Jewish writer, was born in Będzin (1907) to the
Zionist activist Icchak Wygodzki. When he was young, he was an actor in the
drama group of the Ivria society (after WWI) and performed on the
Hebrew stage. He was also active in the Hashomer Hatza'ir
organization. He studied in the Yavne gymnasium, but despite the
Hebrew-national education he received in his father's home and from his
teachers Sobotko, Tewel Klajnman and Z. Borensztajn, he turned his back to the
Zionistic goals of these people. He was fascinated with radical leftist ideals
and he started to offer his talent to the Polish working class and their
literature. In the twenties, he was arrested because of his communist activity
and was kept in prison for a long time.

In the last war, under the regime of the Nazis, he suffered much more, both as
a Jew and as a writer with communist tendencies. In his poems he glorifies the
fighters for equality and social justice and the masses of the oppressed people
who did not give up until over Poland, my homeland, whose war and rebirth
I accompanied, the red flag of liberty was lifted.

In the twenties he published his maiden composition in a literary journal and
since then his reputation among Polish writers became greater. In the war, he
lost his whole family: parents, brothers, wife (a member of the famous Domb
family in Będzin) and daughter. He was thrown into solitary confinement, sent
to Auschwitz, and tried to commit suicide, but he did not succeed and was left
alive.

His works in prose and poetry express his emotional and spiritual personal
world. The poems of Bialik, whom Wygodzki describes as the giant of the
Hebrew poetry, had a very strong effect on him, which is reflected in his
book of poems The Diary of Love.

His poems which are dedicated to the Holocaust are imbued with depression and
grief. There he expresses the tragedy of the Jewish people with great
intensity. In one of his ballads he mourns:

Forgive me for the century in whose decadence I lived
Under the load of the mortar I collapsed
I dug pits in the forests
Lungs consumptive and contracted
I tasted from the poisoned goblet
With a lost hand I inscribed my words
And my soul knew no solace.

His first book of poems, called Apel, appeared in Moscow in 1933.
Until now, the following books have been published: The Clerk,
In The Valley, Jalonek and the So, Back
Home, Near the Road, The Empty Yard, Six
Stories and a collection of poems which includes 120 poems, divided into
eight main parts according to topics.

Wygodzki translated some of Shalom Aleichem's and Efraim Kaganowski's works
into Polish and also the letters of Egon Erwin Kisch, a German Jewish writer.

Now he lives in Poland and his reputation of a gifted writer attracts many many
readers. His books have been out of print for a long time now.

M. H.

I could title the story with a motto taken from the Bible or from The New
Testament, as writers do, in order to introduce the reader to the subject as
accurately as possible, if not only to participate in the grief of the mother
whose story I am about to tell. But I have not found in the ancient books the
sentence which will throw enough light on the incident that happened to me.

I have seen mothers who did not want to separate from their children even when
they could save their own lives, but I have also seen mothers who desperately
deserted their children and handed them over, and after the children had been
gathered into the trucks to be executed, they joined the labor camps and the
path of suffering .I will not hurry to judge them as guilty or innocent. I have
been weighing this problem for a long time. I have talked to people in God's
service, to the wise, to laymen, to mothers of children and to barren women,
but the more I thought about it, the more perplexed I became.

If I showed you a woman who poisoned her son to save him from the tortures of
the German hell, would you ask her how she felt at night, all alone, with the
memories of her deed?

I knew that telling the story would not help to understand it, although that
was my purpose, but it could uncover part of its mystery I also knew that
its hero would remain a fiction, the fruit of the writer's imagination, if I
did not materialize him in a real person, in a real place and in a real time
because the things told here have their hold in reality:

In prison B-0 (probably in Auschwitz  the translator), in which I was put
three days ago, there were eight separate cells. Right away I knew that only
two were occupied: mine and the second to my right. I heard not only the
frequent clicks of the lock of the other cell, but also the footsteps and other
sounds through the wall that divided our cells.

The jailer let us out twice a day  once to the toilets and once to get
our food ration. First to come out was the unknown prisoner, and then was my
turn. We had never met. I was waiting for my investigation with apprehension. I
could not fall asleep not only because of my stress and tension, but especially
because of the terrible cold. It was January 1942, a freezing, stormy winter
also to those outside of jail. I slept on the floor in my clothes, all curved
up, my head on my arms.

On the third night I woke up to the sound of the opening door of the nearby
cell, and right after that there was complete silence, a silence that made you
tremble, and it was as if I could hear the pulse of the emptiness through the
wall.

After a while, that same door opened again and I heard the pent up puffs of the
jailers dragging a body. I listened intently. First there was silence. But
after a minute I heard moans and groans which did not stop. I turned to the
other wall hoping that doing so I would not hear the sobs, but they reached my
ears even there. Moreover, they sounded as if coming from where I was standing.
I squeezed myself into the corner, but it was in vain. I stuck my fingers into
my ears and this time it worked, but how long can one stand with his arms
lifted? I felt I was going crazy.

The first rays of dawn could be seen through the window, a pale, weak light.
And there, across the wall, an unhappy human-being was wailing. During that day
they took him out twice again. I knew it because I heard the jailers' footsteps
and their screaming voices, and when they brought him back, I heard from his
cell the same endless moans, a wordless outcry which tore my heart. When I was
forced to listen to those heartbreaking groans day and night, I wished I too
felt physical pain and cried out bitterly. Then I understood something which I
had never believed in before, that tortures of the soul are more painful than
tortures of the body. It is better to lose your mind because of swollen, beaten
fingers and broken bones than of the endless, maddening cries coming from
behind the walls of my cell.

[Page 374]

When the jailer opened the door and handed the dinner ration, I asked him about
the date of my expected investigation. It was clear to me how it would end, but
then, at least, when I was out of my cell, I would no longer hear my neighbor's
cries. It seemed that my impertinent question did not particularly surprise the
jailer. He had known the souls of people who had been tortured there for more
than a year, and also their reaction to the heartbreaking cries heard for
twenty hours a day.

At night that door opened again. The prisoner had been taken to innumerable
investigations. For a short while there was silence, which restored my peace of
mind, but soon, the maddening cries burst out again. I became a nervous wreck,
a bundle of raw nerves. I punched the wall with my fists to stop the harsh
voice, but the person behind the wall did not become any quieter.

Once, the door of my cell opened. I squeezed myself into the corner, so the
policeman did not notice me at first, because through the half-open door only
dark light could be seen.  Komm!, come!

Fear seized me. My instinct told me that despite the endless wailing, it was
better here than where the cruel Gestapo inquisitors were waiting for me.

 Come! Come! He repeated his order twice. One order which was
spiced with words of contempt and ridicule probably did not satisfy him.

I went out to the corridor. He did not close the door of my cell and pointed to
the room where the abandoned prisoner was staying. He opened the door and
ordered me to get in. Then I saw

On the floor lay an old, torn suit and the tortured man was thrown on the
ground breathing heavily . His underwear was soaked with blood and he wriggled
and twisted with pain, pressing his head towards his belly, shrinking and
moaning. I think the moans were soundless, so how did they still cut the air
and deafened my ears?

 Take off your clothes!

The policeman pointed at me. I was wrong. Not at me, at my clothes. I hesitated
because I did not understand anything.

 Well!

I took off my jacket and then my trousers.

Dress him up!  He pointed to the prisoner.

I touched the lean, wizened, helpless body which was senseless but burning with
sores and wounds. By the light of the open door I noticed that his limbs were
covered with red, blue-gray bruises. I leaned down trying to hold him, but he
slipped off my hands, looking at me with dim but imploring eyes. It was very
hard to dress him because he kept moving clumsily, hitting his head at the
stony floor. I was helpless. I did the job hurriedly so as to finish it as
quickly as possible. Surprisingly, I found pleasure I his groans, as if content
that my heart had become numb and senseless

He was still alive.

I returned to my cell with only my underwear on. Soon after that, he was taken
away again. The savage officers had probably been disgusted with his
blood-soaked clothes and decided to cover him with mine.

I trembled. It was so cold. Then I froze. They brought him back again and
walked away, cursing and swearing. I heard his cries even before he reached his
cell. Had I already got used to that roar?

The day after, the policeman called me and said:

 They brought him a suit from home. Take your clothes off him and dress
him with his.

I hesitated.

 I will put on his suit. Let him stay in mine  I replied.

I did not know what had hit me. Was it disgust with his blood-soaked clothes,
or the fear of having to touch his pain-stricken body?

The policeman changed his mind and threw at me the suit which the stranger had
received from home. It seemed that he too had grown tired of that contemptible
job. He locked the door and I put on the clothes which were not mine. I didn't
even look into the pockets which had been turned inside out after a search.

The suit was the type of the warm sport clothes of skiers. The trousers could
be fastened under the knees and also stretched down to the ankles and tightened
to the shoes. Now I felt much better. After a night in the new suit, it seemed
to me that the stranger's clothes were particularly warm. Later, I noticed that
the suit was too large and dragged on the floor. I would have preferred mine,
but it had probably soaked the blood of the poor convict by then. He was
breathing hard for another three days and nights and I too was numb. When he
stopped for a minute I felt bad, as if missing his groans.

One morning the door of his cell opened and didn't close again. When I went to
the toilets, I peeped into his room and it was empty. Death had arrived. His
things had been collected and the blood  washed up.

*

Not long ago I traveled from L. to A. It was hot and humid in the bus. You
probably know the cars and trains that crawl from one village to another. They
always reek of milk and sausage, especially in the summer. This is not at all a
pleasant smell. In front of me a white-haired woman was sitting, her eyes
 fading blue, cold, with pale swollen lids, typical of
tuberculosis-stricken patients. She did not allow me to open the window,
fearing a draft. As it was growing warmer, I took off my coat, which I usually
avoid doing in public places. On my left arm there is a number which was
tattooed when I was in a concentration camp, a number which always attracts the
attention of anybody near me. Then, the thing which I had expected happened.

I got off at the station, and so did the woman. She started talking to me:

 Were you in a concentration camp, sir?

I lifted my arm and showed her the number, thinking that would satisfy her
curiosity.

 You were lucky to get out alive!

Her dry eyes became moist and a tear ran down her cheek. We walked slowly
taking our time.

 Were you there for a long time?

I calculated.

 Since January 1942. Since I was arrested. Exactly here, in A.

 Were you here in prison, sir?

[Page 375]

 Why do you ask?

She caught my hand and continued:

 And did you survive it?

 You see I did!

 My son too might have survived, but I

Here she stopped, bent her head and released my hand.

 My son too was here. Did you know him by any chance?

I explained to her that I had not known anybody because I was in solitary
confinement.

She was quiet for a while and then continued to ask.

 Did they beat a lot?

 They beat as they chose to, but somehow I came through. And what
happened to your son?

 I killed him!

I looked at her questioningly. 'This woman must have lost her mind,' I said to
myself.

 You killed him in prison? Is it possible? How did you enter?

You remember the market in A. We walked on the cobbled road, skipped over the
well near which the peasants used to water their horses. A driver stopped his
car in front of the tavern.

As early as January 1942, her son, knowing that he would not be able to escape
the SS had prepared poison which he hid under the lining of the coat's pocket,
for the sake of safety. If they arrested and tortured him during the
investigation, he might not be able to bear it and would mention names of
others, which might cause their arrest. This was what he had told his mother.

And indeed, one day he was arrested in his yard while cutting wood. He was
dressed in his shirt without a jacket. He was dragged forcefully, shoved into a
motorcycled cart and taken away.

She continued to speak, her voice slightly anxious.

 I had always looked for an opportunity to send him the coat in which the bundle
with the cyanide of potassium was hidden. I used to take the risk and walk up
and down the prison square and once I even knocked at the gate. They told me
that my son did not need the coat because he was kept warm enough and ordered
me to get away. I returned home, desperate. The day after, however, late at
night, a policeman appeared at my door and asked for a coat for my son. I
didn't think much, opened the wardrobe and took out long warm trousers that
could be fastened under the knees, sportsmen's trousers, designed for skiers. I
also handed him a coat As the policeman was leaving, I kissed his hand.
After a few days I was informed that my son had suddenly died and they returned
the coat. But it was not my son's coat; it was somebody else's. I haven't been
able to find out what it meant.

I realized that at that moment I became part of her life and that I had lived
her experiences, her wishes and the last hours of her murdered son. I heard her
story and my heart seemed to explode. I must have stopped because she asked:

 Have you grown tired, sir?

I resumed walking and she continued:

 I don't know what my son did when he received the coat, but I'm afraid
he suffered tremendously until he got it. Even you, sir, who sat with him at
one time, cannot deny it completely and relieve me from the doubt.

 Madam, people suffered a lot there, but rest assured that you did very
much for your son in his last moments.

 But you, sir, you were there too, and still you managed to come out
alive. If I hadn't sent him the coat, I wouldn't have killed him. How can I
live in peace when my conscience tortures me day and night? With every passing
day my regret grows deeper and I am filled with more remorse. If I had only
known that they flogged him, caused him unbearable suffering, and that the
poison eased his pain, I would have felt better, knowing that I helped him
speed up the end of his suffering

She rested a minute and repeated:

 Yes, I would have been quiet.

What could I tell her and how could I comfort her? Should I have described to
her the cleansing suffering of her son the martyr? Should I have told her the
truth that the coat had never reached her son? If I had done so, I would have
certainly wounded her tired soul which was already so beaten and depressed. Let
the poor mother live in the hope that her son had taken his life and she had
helped him hasten the arrival of the liberating death.

(Translation from the Polish with minor omissions  M. Hampel)

[Page 375]

The Zagłębie Martyrs Monument in Israel

Translated by Lance Ackerfeld

Since the last Zaglembian Jews were exiled in 1943 from their neighborhoods and
annihilated, the remnants of the Zaglembian Jews in Israel and the Diaspora
meet annually in the thousands for a memorial service for the brutal slaughter
of our parents and loved ones. The eulogies and memorial prayers allow some
sort of expression to our scathing pain, and everyone communes with the memory
of their family home that was destroyed. Psalms are said and a public
Kaddish recited for the martyred spirits.

In 1951 an urn of ashes of the Zaglembian Jews sacrificed in Auschwitz was
presented to the Zaglembian Émigrés Organization. It was given by
a former Sosnowiec resident, David Zicher, who remarkably had managed to
survive, and who had served as an inmate near the camp's death furnaces. There
was a meeting with the organization's board led by Rabbi Menachem Hager of
blessed memory, who served many years as the chairman of the Zaglembian
Émigrés Organization in Tel Aviv, till he passed way in 1954. In
the meeting [Zicher] he described in a choked voice and tear-filled eyes, how
he had probed and turned over with his hands a small quantity of ashes, that he
had carefully saved from the last dispatch of Jews from our region in 1943,
amongst whom was his wife and children who had been gassed and incinerated.

By agreement of the Chief Rabbinate of Tel Aviv, that had intervened in this
matter, it was decided after deliberations and inquiries that this box of ashes
should be brought for proper burial in Israel. In the month of Av, 5712 (1952),
a funeral took place in which many people participated and the urn of ashes was
buried in a very prominent, central location in the old Nachlat Yitzhak
cemetery, near the graves of the soldiers who had fallen defending the State of
Israel. The chairman of the organization, who was also head of the Chevrat
Kaddisha, strove to see achieve this.

[Page 376]

[Click here to extend the picture]

The Monument for the twelve Zaglembian communities
in the Nachlat Yitzhak cemetery

A day preceding the funeral, Rabbi Hager fell ill and was unable to participate
in the funeral. Just before leaving him, on his way to the Assuta
Hospital, he requested that I lead the funeral service and eulogize in his
name, the Holocaust victims, whose grains of holy ashes were now buried in the
soil of Israel. Thus, the funeral took place according to the usual tradition:
a grave was excavated into which the ashes were buried, prayers were read,
Kaddish said and eulogizes heard.

The miniature mita[1]
on which the ashes of the martyrs of the Zaglembian communities was brought to
Israel and photographs of the temporary headstone in the cemetery and the
monument, that was erected later, were presented to the archives of the Yitzhak
Katzenelson Bet Lochamei Museum, for the Holocaust and the Rebellion legacy,
located near Kibbutz Lochamei Haghettaot in the Western Galilee.

The buried ashes remained for two years without a suitable headstone, because
of the lack of funds to erect a monument in memory of the glory of the Jews of
Zagłębie. Later, funds were collected by donations from our surviving
brothers, and a monument was erected for their eternal memory.

On the 11th anniversary of the destruction our parent's birthplace, on Tisha B'av 5714,
(8/8/1954) an unveiling ceremony of the monument, on which the names of the
twelve Zaglembian communities that were destroyed were engraved in marble:

Eulogized: Rabbi Hager, of blessed memory, Attorney Dr. Rechtman, Dr. Heller,
the representative of the Polish Émigrés Organization and the
writer of these lines. Due to the very cramped conditions and the enormous
excitement of the crowd it was necessary to forgo eulogies by the
representatives of organizations and emissaries of our overseas
landsmanschaften, who had come especially for this reason.

The committee members lowered the black cloth that covered the monument, and a
magnificent monument was revealed to the excited gathering. The crowd wept.
People fainted. After the prayer El Male Rachamim and the reciting
of Kaddish, the crowd left the cemetery that had been sanctified,
and has served since then as a meeting place for memorials that take place
annually on Tisha B'Av.

During a memorial service in 1957 a terrible tragedy took place, which ended
with the death of one of our most dedicated members in organization matters.
Attorney Dr. Pinchas (Paul) Majteles, a Holocaust survivor, became excited to
such an extent during a very impressive eulogy, that he fell on the martyrs
grave, and his pure soul was extinguished. Even in death he was not separated
from his wretched brothers, the full extent of their tragedy he had experienced
himself.

K. Organizations of former Będzin residents throughout the world

[Page 390]

2. Former Będzin residents in Israel

by M. H.

Translated by Nitsa Bar Sela

Edited by Yocheved Klausner

According to a careful estimate (on the basis of the lists we possess and the
vast participation in memorial ceremonies for the martyrs of our community), in
Israel there are about two thousand former residents of Będzin and their
numbers grow with the immigration of survivors arriving from Poland.
Będziners live in Israel all over the country: in towns, villages, kvutzot
[groups] and moshavim [cooperative agricultural settlements]. They have
professions in industry, commerce, agriculture, clerkship, education and more.
Generally speaking, they have adapted themselves to the life in the country,
have become devoted citizens and have connected their future with the land
whole-heartedly.

In the years of the great tide of immigration from Poland, 1924-1925, when
hundreds of people came from our town to Israel (most of whom belonged to the
middle class, but failed, unfortunately, in their business here and returned to
Będzin to be annihilated in the Holocaust), there was no need to found a
special landsmanshaft [society of immigrants from the same town or
region], because whenever the immigrants confronted hardships, they were helped
and supported by The General Association of the Immigrants of
Poland, which helped all of them, no matter what town or community they
came from.

But when World War II broke out in 1939, and the first horrendous news started
to reach Israel about the Holocaust and the Będzin refugees escaped to
Russia, Będziners in Tel Aviv began to get together with the purpose to
send help to the suffering refugees in the plains of Siberia. Similar attempts
were made in other cities, Haifa and Jerusalem, where there was a large
concentration of Będziners. However, most attempts to organize the people
failed, because very few were ready to devote themselves to this mission.

One day, by the end of 1939, several people met in the home of Mr. Zilbersztajn
in Tel-Aviv. They were Abram Hampel, Icchak Rudoler, Josef Szapiro (all three
have passed away since), Chaim Welner, Szraga Rozenblum, Szlomo Bolimowski,
Kalman Honigman, Icchak Inwald, Josef Cwi Rajs, Elimemech Diamant, Leibl
Kokotek and others. They laid the foundation to the organization of the former
residents of Będzin. For a long while, they assembled in the flat of Mr.
Zilbersztajn, who was very devoted to the organization in its first years.
Icchak Rudoler was the head of the organization (until his death), Bolimowski
and the late Szapiro were the secretaries and Rozenblum was the treasurer.

The organization was duly registered in the governing offices as an official
association, which had the right to proceed publicly in fundraising and manage
fiscal projects. Its objectives were defined as helping the Będzin
refugees who suffered in Russia and supporting the few immigrants who succeeded
in reaching Israel, after a long journey through neutral countries.

Former residents of Będzin in the USA, especially our good friend Abram
Liwer, who was himself one of the refugees in Russia and succeeded, after
painful wanderings, to bring his entire family to the United States, met and
organized constructive help by sending us by mail packages containing shoes,
clothes and food, to be sent by us to Russia to addresses that we had obtained.
Since this organization was registered by law, the parcels that we received
from America were cleared of customs and other taxes and we could send them to
the USSR without delay. We received letters and telegrams (which we still keep
in the memory of those bitter days) which confirmed that the parcels reached
their destination and helped them survive, and that they needed much more of
them.

We did not count on former residents of Będzin in America alone, and
started fundraising among Będziners in Israel as well. We sent a special
circular to our people, in which we asked them to donate generously. We also
distributed shares, which yielded several hundreds of Israeli pounds (liras), a
considerable sum in those days, established membership dues, gave parties
 and all the money collected was used to distribute packages and offer
financial assistance to new immigrants.

In 1944 a new committee was elected: Mordechai Tenenbaum, of blessed memory,
Asher Fishel, Szraga Rozenblum, Dawid Liwer, Alter Brukner, Szlomo Bolimowski,
Menachem Gelband, Hanoch Malach, J. C. Rajs. This committee succeeded greatly
in placing new immigrants in jobs and finding housing for them. As an example,
three families were put up in a rented three-room shed on Dizengoff Street and
eleven single men were put up in another shed on Levinski Street.

That year we received letters from the Jewish committee in Będzin, who
appealed desperately for immediate financial help for the survivors who were
arriving to Będzin from death and labor camps. Indeed, our committee
immediately mobilized assistance. They raised funds among Będziners in
Tel-Aviv, who donated nice sums of money. The money was intended to help in two
directions: for our brethren in the deserted Będzin and for our people who
were making their way to Eretz Yisrael. The mission of delivering the donations
to their destination was not easy because large sums were spent on the way.

This situation lasted a few years. Meanwhile, the idea arose to join our
organization with the other organizations of Zagłębie into one body
so as to render our activities more efficient by saving money spent on
administration. In the beginning of 1949 the people of Zagłębie met
in a general assembly, in which they decided to unite he two organizations.

[Page 391]

A union was set up, which included the former residents of Będzin,
Sosnowiec and Ząbkowice, under the name of The Zagłębie
World Organization. For five years the united organization was headed by
the late Rabbi Menachem Hager who helped to achieve several of the objectives
of the organization. The deputies were Nechemia Singer, the lawyers Dr. Sapir
and Dr. Rechtman, and Dawid Liwer. The secretaries were Chaim Triger and
Mordechai Hampel. Majer Landsman served as treasurer and other posts were held
by Mrs. Guta Jutkowicz (Ben-Itzhak), the lawyer Dr. Josef Orsztajn, Chaim
Warszawski, the late Dawid Marinka, Israel Sonabend, Israel Szwajcer, the
brothers Szlomo and Jochanan Laudon and others.

As mentioned before, the remnants of all the communities of Zagłębie
formed the united organization, except for the people of Dąbrowa
Górnicza who, for some reason, declined to join us and established an
organization of their own.

When the late Rabbi Hager served as Head, the organization flourished. It
consisted of more than five hundred certified members who often met for social
events, and there were many of them: concerts, balls and performances, the
purpose of which was to collect donations for the needy and loans for new
immigrants. For five years I was active in the Organization of the
Zagłębie People, together with the late Rabbi Hager. I was in charge
of secretarial work and promoted close relationship with landsmanshaftn abroad,
especially in Paris.

Anybody who calls on us is assisted and we try to facilitate his absorption and
acclimatization in the country. Thousands of Israeli pounds were distributed to
the new immigrants thanks to our connections with some banks in Tel-Aviv, who
helped with loans, which we vouched for. We also tried to find jobs, housing,
appliances (sewing machines and others), medical help and more. Many of the new
immigrants, who in time settled down economically, appreciate our modest moral
and material support, thanks to which they have managed to overcome their first
absorption problems.

And although our means were small, since we did not receive any help from
America despite all our appeals, we did all we could in order to help the needy
and we never send them away empty-handed.

The peak activity of the Organization of the Zagłębie Former
Residents is the erection of a memorial to the martyrs of Zagłębie.
It stands in a central place in the cemetery in Nahlat Itzhak, near Tel-Aviv.

With the death of Rabbi Hager the organization split up again and weakened as a
consequence. A new Organization of Będziners was set up and
its committee consisted of the lawyer Dr. Rechtman, head, Elimelech Diamant,
secretary, Menachem Gelband, treasurer, Mrs. Rechil Gutman (of the family of
Rabbi Graubart, of blessed memory), Abram Gold, Mosze Benjamin Klajnman and
Moniek Sercarz.

The activities of the new organization are not particularly noticeable,
unfortunately. Except for a few loans to new immigrants and the traditional
yearly memorial ceremonies, which are held together with the Organization of
Sosnowiec former residents, there are no special achievements. The main success
of this organization is Pinkas Bendin.

Now, after four years of separation, a re-unification of all the organizations
of the Zagłębie people is being considered.

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